Gene drive technology to control disease vectors or pests has great potential for addressing humanitarian and public health problems. Its application for pest control in agriculture, however, raises important environmental, social and ethical issues.

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Philanthropies dedicated to finding cures for rare diseases explore new models for funding and cooperation to accelerate research and drug development

Many charities employ funding schemes from venture capital to accelerate research and drug development for rare diseases. Though it has yielded new treatments, venture philanthropy prompts raises criticism about the role of charities in marketing and pricing their drugs.

Biomimicry experiences a revival driven by a more systematic approach to explore nature's inventions for human use

For decades, biomimicry was a heralded concept of copying nature's inventions, but it yielded only few results. A recent shift towards more systematic ways to trawl nature's inventions and to understand their function before mimicking them could lead to new innovations.

The biological master file concept could help to overcome regulatory challenge of personalized medicines

The clinical use of bacteriophages to treat bacterial infections faces regulatory difficulties in the EU. The ‘Biological Master File’ concept could overcome these hurdles for phage therapy as well as other personalized medicines.

Mental disorders affect a huge number of people and have a major economic impact due to treatment costs and lost productivity. Society and politics need to acknowledge this huge toll in order to better support the healthcare systems that deal with these disorders.

Core facilities have become an important resource in biomedical research, providing scientists with access to sophisticated instrumentation and expertise. To enable scientists to perform ever more complex and difficult experiments, core facilities not only need to constantly upgrade technology and expertise, but also cooperate and pool their assets.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Life science research aboard the International Space Station has come under scrutiny for its costs and apparent lack of returns

Scientific research was used to justify the presence of humans in orbit when the International Space Station was launched in 1998. However, critics now question the value of conducting research in space given the enormous costs involved.

As the trade of personal health and medical data expands, it becomes necessary to improve legal frameworks for protecting patient anonymity, handling consent and ensuring the quality of data

The trading of personal medical and health data will drastically increase given the boon of mobile devices used to monitor health, and the interest large internet companies have in this resource. Legal frameworks need to be adapted and upgraded to protect patient privacy and consent, and to ensure the quality of individual health data for research.